(Man’s Ruin)
by Craig Regala
Tagged as a sampler of the titles that constitute their back catalog distributed by RED in the United States. There are 13 of them and they go from good: the Desert Sessions comps (two 10″s per CD, three of them), and the Entombed cover LP (some gritty metal/punk covers and some other tunes turned that way plus bombastically great Captain Beyond and Alice Cooper Band tunes), to the cranked-up and ready-to-go rock’n’roll: from the Gaza Strippers and The Hellacopters/Glucifer split. On top of the heap is a different Hellacopters CD (their first), the artfully arty Queens Of The Stone Age, (with Kyuss along for ride on one title and Beaver on another), the fucking balls-out great Unida CD and unimpeachably burly Fu Manchu double 10″ with bonus track on CD. All in all, After School Special tracks nicely, playing as a really strong album. The appropriate way to find out what the fuck’s what with one of America’s premier rock to punk to metal to hardcore labels.
(610 22nd St. #302 San Francisco, CA 94107)